JMW closes in on £20m after another strong year
FEE income and profits have continued to increase at ambitious law firm JMW Solicitors.
After 13% growth in the year to the end of April, revenue is now £19.4m – and will surely top £20m for the first time in 2015.
Provisional profit rose 8.5% from £3.5m to £3.8m and profits per equity partner surged from £350,000 to £410,000, JMW has weathered the storm of a tough and changing legal market admirably – its fee income has grown 90% since 2010 and staff numbers have doubled from around 140 to 280 in the same period, including 35 new hires in the past year.
The firm said its personal injury and clinical negligence remained its most profitable departments, while in terms of revenue growth, corporate, up 47% and private client (+46%) were the star performers.
Revenue was also up in family (20%), commercial property (11%), personal injury (9%) and clinical negligence (8%).
The firm, based in Spinningfields, said it is continuing to woo new clients – 70% of the work taken on in the past year came from them. JMW said it had also seen more website instructions, with website revenue up 18% to £1.3m. Fees from the solicitors’ referral network Lawshare also increased by 84%. The Lawshare network now comprises 198 firms.
Senior partner Joy Kingsley said: “It has been a year of great success at JMW with our record financial performance following the pattern of the last five years. We are proud that our strategy of concentrating on the development of our business and that of our clients continues to pay dividends. The addition of new partners and their clients, coupled with the existing strong JMW people, ethos, skills and client care has led to increased success.”
Managing partner Paul Walker added: “We are delighted that for the fourth year running we can celebrate outstanding financial results for the firm.
“We are pleased by the continued growth of all our departments and we are committed to building on our great achievements to become the law firm of choice for clients across all our disciplines. We consider the firm to be in excellent shape going forward.”
